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Vintage Television and VideoVintage television and video equipment, programmes, VCRs etc.

After a few years of thinking I was alone in collecting vcr's I've come across this site. I have been a fan of Ferguson videostar and fisher studio standard vcr's since I was a kid, I'm now 38 and have a small collection.

Currently have a 3v29, 3v30, 3v32, 3v35, 3v38

Fvh-p716, fvh-p720, fvh-p725 and a fvh-p908. All in working order and vgc.

If anyone is interested il post some pics once I've sorted a photo bucket account.

Hello Steve and welcome. You can easily post your pictures directly onto this site. Much easier for everyone to see them.
Post reply. scroll down. Manage attachments, choose files and upload up to five pictures. Open and post. Regards, John.

Some belters there, we were Fisher dealers and I remember the range well. And I remember all the hassle we had with the idlers on them too. Rewind and fast-forward was never brilliant even with new ones on. Good looking machines though, and they were popular with the public because they had "studio standard" written on them. Happy memories.

Welcome. I have an fvh-p720 myself, bought in Germany. Kept it because it has a switch for 'DDR-Empfang' (former East Germany!) and is Pal-Secam B/G standard (tho' I tweaked the modulator output to get it to Pal -I).

I also had a Siemens version, I think it was FM320 or something. That got scrapped /written off as the plastic runners for the drum load arms disintegrated so it wouldn't lace properly.

Agreed on the damn idlers. Bad design.The spool tables also sometimes came apart so clutch wouldn't work properly! The wind speed on these was never anything to write home about. There is a knack to changing the idlers whereby you grab the pulley from below deck, a fairly painless process.

For reference, I have attached some pictures (As luck would have it, I have the 1980s VCR manual in front of me!)

I've changed the idlers 4 times in the time I've had the machines, they actually do very little so it's more rubber degradation than use that's causing them to fail, there's something about the noise of the spool up sequence that has always fascinated me. Specially on the 716, 720 and 725

I stand corrected on 2 of the model numbers, fvh-p722 not 720 and fvh-p915kv. The 720 and 905 I had when I was a kid.

Hey Tony, my dad was also a fisher dealer for the north of Scotland, he used to sell the tv's vcr's and Hifi systems. This is what got me into the brand. I had 2 Hifi's, one that had a built in record player and one without. Also had the 21 and 28" stereo tv's. Until recently we still had all the banners and branded shelving but sadly had to go during a house move.

I notice some of the machines were made in west Germany and some in Japan, not sure which was the later or better quality.

Hi Ben, I'd be interested in seeing pics of your machine. Can't tempt it from you can I? Lol

I'm sure it was a Fisher machine which drove me insane a long time ago. Clock was ok but when standby was pressed the LED came on for a few seconds then went out. Much poking around the PSU and microcontroller was fruitless, another (wiser) engineer told me to change the idler. I was very doubtful this would work but it did, apparently the machine fires the reel motor and looks for pulses from the reel sensors before waking up.....

The last Fisher VCR I saw (was it 1200?) had a perfect digital still. It also had - which was great from an engineer's point of view - a semicircular cutout in the sub-deck. Result - idler change in ten minutes! I had a 615 in once that someone had actually hacked a hole in the subdeck using a chisel to change the idler.
We always used SEME for the idlers as they were genuine and worked. Well, worked as well as the originals which wasn't too well, admittedly. Pattern parts either didn't rewind or else just sat there banging.
Although they were a Sanyo subsidiary they had nothing in common with the contemporary Sanyo VCRs, and I assume that was so Sanyo were seen as being loyal to the Betamax format.
Glyn

I questioned your post because you quoted my comments regarding the fisher machines not the Ferguson ones. Does anyone know if the 3v36 has a headphone socket on the panel near to the power and timer buttons? I'm pretty sure the machine I had years ago had one.

Although they were a Sanyo subsidiary they had nothing in common with the contemporary Sanyo VCRs, and I assume that was so Sanyo were seen as being loyal to the Betamax format.

We had Sanyo and Fisher betas. The were the same machines, only the name and some styling were different. With VHS Fisher was considered more upmarket than Sanyo, but the machines we had didn't differ much. The digital still was a cool at the time.

Looking for a picture of a 3v36 if anyone has one of these machines? I had one not so long ago and now that I have my 3v35 would like to see the physical difference. I can't find a picture online anywhere only the 3v35. Can anyone help?

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